During the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet authorities devised and implemented a distinctive minority policy experiment intended to draw various non‑titular communities into the broader project of socialist construction. The main agents of this experiment were the members of the Central Committee for National Minorities (TsK Natsmen), established in April 1924 within the All‑Ukrainian Central Executive Committee (VUTsVK). At the same time, these very actors were among the first to be targeted during the national and mass operations of the 1930s. This paper is based on the close reading of the investigation files of the heads of the Polish, Bulgarian, German, and Greek sections of the TsK Natsmen compiled by the Soviet secret police between 1934 and 1938. The aim of the paper, thus, is to trace the connection between the minority policies of the 1920s and the mass terror of the following decade.
